I'll Let You Go (70 page)

M
arcus put away his wife's letters but couldn't help think of her, especially while leafing through the garden of his Montecito home. Though Louis said his daughter had never set foot on the property, the husband felt her hand there nonetheless: in the purplish echinacea, magenta cosmos and—most powerfully—in the white bridal veil of
Dendrobium superbum
. He spent an inordinate time watching caterpillars fatten on parsley before attaining their samadhi posture, necks arc'd to twig, perfect yellow-green sarcophagi suspended by strands of silk. In time, the single wing of a black swallowtail previewed through a diaphanous cocoon; then out it came, lucky enough to have dodged the wasp.

He went around picking up snails as when he was a boy, gently provoking them to retract their gelatinous antennae. One of the suited men had shown him a magazine article about a certain parasite that began its life cycle beneath the shell of one of those curious creatures. When the host was eaten by a fish, the parasite sent a pulse through the fish's brain, commanding it to surface, thus increasing the odds of being plucked from the water by a gull. There was beauty, he thought, in being snatched heavenward from the deep blue sea. For so many years he'd marched to schizophrenia's viral drum—what was each living thing, he thought, if not a parasite of God? Now he was free; he'd been commanded to surface. A great bird was bearing him aloft.

O
ne morning, Marcus had a dream that made him rush to the ocean for cleansing. He had conjured the tower—and Katrina on their wedding bed. He came in her and was still ejaculating when he woke up.

He went out far enough to make his chaperons briefly consider stripping for a rescue before he turned around and bodysurfed to shore like a doughy crate. As he strode from the heavy water, the Great Dane he had met at Saint-Cloud nearly knocked him over before taking a desultory romp in the foam. A small figure trudged tentatively forward, dappling the sand with its footprints. A suited man handed Marcus a towel as the boy approached.

“Hello!”

“Hello!”

“We went to the house. They said I could find you here.”

“And they were right!”

The boy was staring at the tattooed heart that encircled his name. Marcus dipped down to give him a better look.

“Want to come in? The water's fine.”

Toulouse hesitated.

“Not too cold today—are you a swimmer?”

“Mostly in pools. But I like to Boogie-board.”

“Do you? We've got one right there!” He pointed to the fiberglass plank, stuck in the sand like a shark's fin.

Toulouse cracked a smile.

“Well come on, then!”

“But I don't have a suit—”

“You've got skivvies, don't you?
That
'll do—there isn't a soul around! And these gentlemen,” he ribbed, with a wink to his keepers, “well, they don't count!”

“Oh my God, Edward, are they taking off their clothes?” She strained her eyes mightily. Lucy and her brother had stayed behind in the parking lot, where they sat in the buggy like tourists in a safari park.

“Incredible.”

“
Edward
, let me
see
,” she cried, grabbing at his binoculars.

She tugged again, but he was busy getting his magnified jollies; the fabric of the Mizrahi Christmas shroud bunched atop the lenses like a soft, thick cord. He relented his hold.

While Lucy adjusted focus, Sling Blade rolled up his trouser legs and blissfully ambled in the sand.

“Oh my God,” said Lucy. “They're going in?”

“Yes,” he said. “It's … beautiful.”

Edward watched with naked eyes, transfixed, the veil held up by a gloved, sequined finger. He lowered the cloth, and on its way to his chin, the Moroccan weave blotted tears from his eyes.

The scene was primeval: the father, a large, pale mammal, with the jittery seed of his progeny floating near, ducked under the greenest crepuscular swell, the very air aglimmer from a drunk philanthropist sun who carelessly cast a trillion coins down. (You could see the milky wave's arterial underside.) Edward thought of his own father, Dodd, a man who'd been here all along—on Stradella Road—
not
a swimmer, and with whom he would never float in seas real or imagined. He envisioned the body of his grandfather on a bier, cast onto wavelets, lapping toward oblivion, then drifted back to the iroko tub where his mother bathed him—he could summon all the years spent soaking there—and closed his eyes, wondering how it might feel to be in the ocean with
her:
a baptizing and a going-away, bobbing in the deep with Toulouse and Marcus and Trinnie and Lucy—Pullie and Bluey and Grandpa Lou. Winter and the Monasterios …

“They're coming out!” cried Lucy.

Like bizarre cabana boys, a row of suited men held bath towels in readiness.

“Let's go to the Mauck,” said Edward, who was himself just surfacing.

“But
why
? Don't you want to meet him?”

“Do you want them to see us gaping?” he snapped. “Jesus, Lucy, they've hardly met—allow them some dignity!”

Apprehending him stirred by forces larger than the ones at hand, she sheepishly trailed after while Edward steered the buggy to the ramp. It docked and was pneumatically lifted.

Holding a tidy package of dry clothing above his head as they descended the low dune that overlooked the lot, a shivering, towel-wrapped Toulouse proposed a jaunt to Bel-Air. (The plan all along was to introduce Mr. Weiner to the peerless pleasures of Olde CityWalk. The cousins had wisely chosen a day when the in-laws were out of town.) Marcus enthusiastically agreed, begging the chance to first run home so
he might make himself more presentable. It was exciting as hell to be courted by his son.

While Pullman leapt ahead, entering the MSV through the passenger side, Toulouse confessed to having brought his cousins and hoped Marcus didn't mind. The man proclaimed it a delight. Seconds later, the dear, inquisitive face of Lucille Rose hung like a small pink lantern beneath the Mauck's open wing, the long neck attached to a body still hidden in that amazing vehicle's recesses. Mr. Weiner caught a glimpse but was diverted by the arrival of Sling Blade, who threw his old acquaintance a cocky salute. Lucy had by then retreated—and Edward was nowhere to be seen.

The small convoy left the lot, with Marcus in the Town Car ahead. Edward busied himself in the lavatory while Toulouse gingerly removed the sand between his toes and quietly mused; he still tingled from the sea and from other things, too, and the corners of his eyes stung from salt.

Lucy could contain herself no more. “Well, what did you talk about?”

“Not too much. We mostly swam.”

“Not in the water—on the way
back
.”

“Not too much. He said he was glad to see me.”

“Did he mention her?”

“Who.”

“Trinnie!” she exclaimed, marveling, but not in a charmed way, at his laconic mien. “Your
mother—
”

“No.”

He started in on the other foot, and she wanted to slap him. “Did you tell him about us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does he know we're
here
? That we came with you?”

“He saw you, didn't he?” he said grumpily.

“I wasn't sure.”

“I
told
him. He already knows all about you
anyway
. Your dad's fucking told him everything, I'm sure.”

“Knowing about us is different from us just having invited ourselves along, OK? That could be construed as rude.”

Edward clumsily exited the bathroom.

“What
I
want to find out,” his sister continued, “is why he went to
that cemetery in East L.A.” She was convinced that a chapter—if not her whole book—hinged upon that particular puzzle's solution.

“Lucy,” Edward interjected. “Would you please just stop?”

“Edward, why are you so angry with me? It's for my
book
.”

“Are you a writer or a journalist?”

“A writer,” she said, with a mixture of pride and caution.

“Well, I'm not sure if you're either—but if you
think
you're a writer, then
act
like one. Some things are better left as mystery.”

She sulked. “It's interesting, that's all. I mean, him going there. The possible reasons. Whatever.”

They arrived in Montecito and waited while Marcus readied himself. One of the men in suits poked a head in to invite them for refreshments at the house; another bade them stretch their legs on the manicured grounds. Only Pullman took them up on their offers.

After an interlude, that very animal shot back to the Mauck from the outside world. At the same time, there were boomy voices and, without warning, Mr. Weiner clambered aboard, causing immediate discomfort and general paralysis. He was still an enormous man in many ways, but a superbly dressed one, and his face, slapped with fine aftershave, shone with health, wit and good tidings. He had the stubble of a beard on him and had come from the shower—his hair glowed too and the tousled locks tangled and stormed so that for the life of him he resembled Neptune on holiday—and he filled up the Mauck in such a way that it felt close to bursting.